The Humbugs of the World P. T. Barnum (ebook reader for comics txt) đ
- Author: P. T. Barnum
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From Boston the Allen boy went to Portland, Maine, where he succeeded âastonishingly,â till some gentleman applied the lampblack test to his assumed mediumship, whereupon he âcame to grief.â
The following is copied from the Portland Daily Press, of March 21.
âExposed.â âThe âwonderfulâ spiritual manifestations of the âboy-medium,â Master Henry B. Allen, in charge of Doctor J. H. Randall, of Boston, were brought to a sad end last evening by the impertinent curiosity and wicked doings of some of the gentlemen present at the sĂ©ance at Congress Hall.
âAs usual, one of the company present was selected to sit at the side of the boy, and allowed his hand and arm to be held by both hands of the boy while the manifestations were going on. The boy seized hold of the gentlemanâs wrist with his left hand, and his shoulder, or near it, with the right hand. The manifestations then began, and among them was one trick of pulling the gentlemanâs hair.
âImmediately after this trick was performed, the hand of the boy was discovered to be very blackâ âfrom lampblack, of the best quality, with which the gentleman had dressed his head on purpose to detect whose was the âspirit-handâ that pulled his hair. His shirt sleeve, upon which the boy immediately replaced his hand after pulling his hair, was also black where the hand had been placed. The gentleman stated the facts to the company present, and the sĂ©ance broke up. Dr. Randall refunded the fifty cents admission fee to those present.â
The spiritualists of the city were somewhat staggered by this exposé, but soon rallied as one of their number announced a new discovery in spiritual science. Here it is, as stated by himself:
âWhatever the electrical or âspirit-handâ touches, will inevitably be transferred to the hand of the medium in every instance, unless something occurs to prevent the full operation of the law by which this result is produced. The spirit-hand being composed in part of the magnetic elements drawn from the medium, when it is dissolved again, and the magnetic fluid returns whence it came, it must of necessity carry with it whatever material substance it has touched, and leave it deposited upon the surface or material hand of the medium. This is a scientific question. How many innocent mediums have been wronged? and the invisible have permitted it, until we should discover that it was the natural result of a natural law.â
What a great discovery! and how lucidly it is set forth! The author (who, by the way, is editor of the Portland Evening Courier) of this new discovery, was not so modest but that he hastened to announce and claim full credit for it in the columns of the Banner of Lightâ âthe editor of which journal congratulates him on having done so much for the cause of spiritualism! Those skeptics who were present when the lampblack was âtransferredâ from the gentlemanâs hair to the mediumâs hand, rashly concluded that the boy was an impostor. It remained for Mr. Hallâ âthat is the philosopherâs nameâ âto make the âelectromagnetic transferâ discovery. The Allen boy ought ever to hold him in grateful remembrance for coming to his rescue at such a critical period, when the spirits would not vouchsafe an explanation that would exculpate him from the grievous charge of imposture. Mr. Hall deserves a leather medal now, and a soapstone monument when he is dead.
A person, whose initials are the same as the gentlemanâs named above, once lived in Aroostook, Maine, and was in the habit of attending âspiritual circles,â in which he was sometimes influenced as a âpersonating medium,â and to represent the symptoms of the disease which caused the controlling spiritâs translation to another sphere. It having been reported in Aroostook that a certain well-known individual, living further east, had died of cholera, a desire was expressed at the next âcircleâ to have him âmanifestâ himself. The medium above referred to got âunder influence,â and personated, with an exhibition of all the symptoms of cholera, the gentleman who was reported to have died of that disease. So faithful to the supposed facts was the representation, that the medium had to be cared for as if he was himself a veritable cholera-patient. Several days after, the man who was âpersonatedâ appeared in Aroostook, alive and well, never having been attacked with the cholera. The local papers gave a graphic account of the âmanifestationâ soon after it occurred.
But to return to the Allen boy. After his exposure by means of the lampblack test, and Mr. Hall, of the Portland Evening Courier, had announced his new discovery in spiritual science, several of the Portland spiritualists had a private âsittingâ with the boy. While he sat with his hands upon the arm of one of their number, they tied a rope to his wrists, and around the personâs arm, covering his hands in the way I have before described. After some wriggling and twisting (the usual amount of ânervousness,â) the bell washeard to ring behind the clotheshorse. The boyâs right hand was then examined, and it was found to be stained with some colored matter that had previously been put upon the handle of the bell. As the boyâs wrists were still tied, and the rope remained upon the manâs arm, the âtransferâ theory was considered to be established as a fact, and the previous exposure shown to be not only no exposure at all, but a âstepping-stone to a grand truth in spiritual science.â Again and again did
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